The Interference: Trials of Remembrance
by Newbie-Spud
Summary: While Alexander Karsath fights to survive in Haven City, the person formerly known as Axel has his own problems to deal with. The Radiant Garden Restoration Committee barely trusts him, and now a giant cavern has been discovered beneath the castle. What will Lea uncover within the Cavern of Remembrance?
1. Part 1

**The Interference: Trials of Remembrance**

**Part 1**

Axel wasn't getting along with Leon, though not for lack of trying on Axel's part. He'd tried everything he could to get on the Radiant Garden Restoration Committee's good side:

He'd started calling himself Lea, his original name.

He'd gotten out of that imposing black trenchcoat and put on more stylish (and comfortable!) traveler's gear.

He'd answered every single question they had for him about Organization XIII and their original plans for this world, or at least as many questions as he had answers.

He'd done everything that they asked him to do, even the demeaning grunt work.

And he'd put every ounce of his natural charm to work on proving he was really a nice, okay guy.

It seemed to be finally paying off, kinda. The open-minded ninja Yuffie was the first one to start treating him with a little more respect. Aerith still seemed to be wary of him, but her natural kindness compelled her to give Lea the benefit of the doubt. Merlin the wizard seemed to be able to tell between an honest turncoat and a liar, so Lea was fine by him. And Cid just didn't give a damn either way, so long as Lea kept his fire abilities _far_ away from Cid's stuff.

But Leon... Lea didn't even know what to do about him. Leon couldn't stand to be in the same room with him at times, and other times the man was constantly questioning what Lea did at every minute of every day. For Leon, it seemed, the former Organization member was still on trial.

Part of Lea couldn't blame the guy – if Xemnas had showed up out of nowhere and said, "I've reformed and I'm ready to help in any way I can," Lea would also be pretty freaking suspicious, even if Mickey was there to confirm it like he had with Lea. But that didn't make Lea's job any easier.

Lea made an honest effort, but his personality just seemed to rub Leon the wrong way. He'd once joked that maybe the source of the tension was the fact that their names were so similar. "Lea" sounded like the first syllable of "Leon." He'd had enough trouble when there was "Axel" and "Alex," and now this!

Leon didn't so much as smirk at that. "Tough crowd" didn't begin to describe it.

So when Lea trudged his way into Merlin's house on the fifth day, he was understandably displeased to see Leon there, frowning at him. Today's frown was more severe than usual.

Lea knew better than to try being funny. "Alright, what work needs doing today?" he asked plainly. It was probably going to be more grunt work.

From the way Leon hesitated, sighed, and frowned even more at Lea, that apparently wasn't the case. "We've... got something... big for you today," Leon muttered.

Cid spun around in his seat at the computer terminal and gave Lea a flat look. "I'll give ya the details since Leon's here gonna take too long stutterin'."

Leon shrugged nonchalantly, which was a far better reaction than his usual response to Lea's friendly jabs. This was just unfair!

"There's a lot about the ol' Hollow Bastion castle that we've got left to restore, or at least dig out from under the rubble," Cid explained. "Up until last night, we thought we knew 'bout all the places we had left to find."

"Yeah," Lea replied, "I told you about some of them."

Leon stepped forward. "There's a hole in the wall near the rampart. Leading to an area we didn't know about... and you didn't mention."

Lea could only raise his hands in a gesture of innocence. "Hey, the Organization didn't tell me _everything_."

"Whatever," Cid muttered. "Yuffie went in and did a little scouting, and it seems it gets deep into the mountain. That's where all the engine stuff is beneath the castle. But she also found some other stuff, and that's where you come in." Cid reached down and picked up a fairly large metal box-like thing, with a pair of shoulder straps on one side.

"I found some electrical stuff and white doors!" Yuffie announced from behind Lea, startling him. He hadn't noticed the ninja enter Merlin's house. "Cid took a look and said they were parts of a computer mainframe, one that Tron isn't even connected to. And the doors looked suspiciously like some of the Organization's stuff."

Lea looked back at her, then at Leon. "Well this is news to me!" he said defensively. "I knew the Organization operated here, but no idea anyone actually set up shop!"

"We believe ya," Cid said, hauling the box over to Lea. When all he got was an awkward silence in response, Cid added, "Well, I do anyway. Anyway, take this with ya."

The ex-Organization member took the bulky device and, after looking at it for a bit, strapped it to his back. "Let me guess. I'm going in there to finish exploring."

"Yep," Cid confirmed. "And if you find any computer terminals down there, find it and plug this in. It's a wireless reciever that Tron can pick up."

Lea tried not to grimace. This WAS more or less grunt work. Bigger than anything else he'd done since getting here, but still kinda grunt work. He was just finishing the job because no one else really wanted to.

Or... maybe they were letting him do this as a gesture, even though they could easily do it themselves. Leon's cynicism was really starting to get to him.

Oh well. Now was not the time to be annoyed.

Glancing over his shoulder at the bulky metal box on his back, Lea said, "I'm gonna assume the whole 'plugging in' process is foolproof, or else you wouldn't be letting me do this."

Cid grinned and went back to his computer, saying, "AND I reinforced it. It's impact-proof AND fireproof! Though I wouldn't be surprised if you STILL managed to find a way to break it."

Lea tightened the straps a bit and looked at the gang. "Okay. Anything else?"

"That's it," Leon said flatly. "Get it done."

Lea gave Leon a mock salute in return. "Yessir." He quickly left the house, glad to be out of Leon's company.

Alright, now what was all this about a hole in the wall?

* * *

There WAS a big hole. Not in the castle walls – in a part of the stone cliff the castle was built on. This particular hole, tall enough for a person and a half, was just a few feet away from where the cliff stopped and the ramparts began.

Lea whistled. "That's a big hole."

He examined the actual damage itself. If the rubble just inside was any indication, this entrance had been created from the outside. Something or someone had come to this very spot, where Lea was standing, and smashed the wall _inward._

This was more than a little suspicious. But what choice did he have? The Restoration Committee was trusting him with this task, and if he wanted any chance of getting on their good side...

Lea walked forward. Some pipes and a severely twisted and broken ladder was just inside, leading down into a deep black hole. There was probably a whole network of caverns down there.

It was a good thing there wasn't any such thing as fall damage in these worlds.

Lea just jumped down. The cavernous shaft led him down to quite a depth before depositing him on a rocky floor, lit by veins of blue and purple ore in the walls. Behind him and in some places in the ceiling were bits of the brown pipes that the castle's engines seemed to use. There was no way back from here, but there was a dark path forward leading deeper into the caves.

The path led into a small pool of water fed by a tiny stream, below a steep outcropping of rock. Lea climbed up and followed the way to the right, past a pair of pillars that formed an entranceway. Just past the pillars was a grander room of the cave, filled with rocky platforms formed high above the ground floor below.

From where Lea was standing, he could see the opposite cliff he was supposed to reach via the platforms. Right up against the wall was a door colored an off-white sort of shade... almost exactly like the doors in Castle Oblivion.

"_Great_," Lea muttered to himself sarcastically. "The Organization had even more secrets. What a surprise."

Lea wasn't exactly a master of the High Jump, but he managed to find a path by following the platforms along the outside wall, which put him in the right position to jump up and climb up to the cliff with the door.

Normally this would be pretty tough, making his way through a dark cave all by himself... But because Alexander had sealed the Dark Corridor with his Lockshield, almost no Heartless or Nobodies could spawn in this world anymore. Not 100% of them – closing the major Dark Corridor just prevented them from both entering and leaving the world – but once they had dealt with the stragglers that were trapped on this world, they were effectively Heartless-free.

It was almost kind of... boring. Other than the fact that he was exploring some old mysterious Organization XIII secret, there wasn't much of anything... exciting about this job.

With a sigh, Lea put his hands on the grand double doors and pushed them open. And then he froze in place, staring at what was just beyond the door.

"Sup," said the eye-patched man on the other side.

Lea jumped back and summoned his chakrams in bursts of fire. Regaining his heart hadn't changed his powers much; if anything, he'd gotten stronger. He couldn't have taken on Xigbar when he was a Nobody, but now? Maybe.

Xigbar (or was it Braig now?) immediately put his hands up. "Hey, hey dude. I'm not here to fight."

"You _always_ bring trouble," Lea spat. "What's your scheme now?"

Braig gave a little flourish and bowed, gesturing to the caves behind him. "To give you the grand tour." He rose back up and looked directly into Lea's eyes. "Welcome to the Cavern of Remembrance."

Lea came to a realization. "_You're_ the one who made that hole?"

Braig scoffed. "What, I can't take on a hollow rock wall? Come on, we're ex-Organization."

Lea just shook his head and took another step back. This was waaaay too weird. "There are... so many things wrong with this situation."

There were a few very awkward moments of silence between the two, before Braig spoke up. "I know, I know. You have a million questions. You don't trust me. But..." The former number II actually _sighed_. "I just want to talk. Follow me to the end of this thing, and I'll answer all of your questions along the way. Deal?"

Now, Lea was confused. This was not like Xigbar... or rather, Braig to act at all. No smirk, no sneer... He looked kind of _vulnerable_.

Eventually, Lea decided that, if there was a trap coming down the line, he would be strong enough to get out of whatever Braig set up. He dismissed his fiery chakrams and said, "Fine. I've got a job to do, anyway."

"Excellent!" Braig declared, grinning again. "Let's get going, then."

Beyond the door was a mineshaft with a large drop in front of them and several areas above them that they couldn't reach yet. There was a door on the other side of the chasm in front of them, but there were no visible platforms they could use other than the brass pipes spanning the whole thing.

As Lea studied the area, looking for a way across, he glanced at Braig and said, "Okay, question number one."

"Shoot," Braig replied.

Lea looked back across the chasm. "Why are you still alive? I thought we'd killed you."

* * *

_Sora gave Xigbar one final blow with his Keyblade, knocking him back to the ground. The space-warped arena returned to its normal configuration._

_Xigbar stood up shakily and pointed one of his guns at the group of Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Axel. But he could only keep it up for a few seconds before he collapsed to his knees, and the gun fell out of his hand._

_"Why did you call me Roxas?" Sora demanded, still in his fighting stance._

_Xigbar chuckled darkly. "Wouldn't you like to know..." he mocked the Keyblade weilder._

_Wisps of darkness and nothingness appeared around the Nobody's body, his body slowly fading away. Sora dropped his stance and ran towards Xigbar. "Hey, wait!"_

_By the time Sora reached him, the Nobody was gone._

_Axel lowered his chakrams. "Well, that's that."_

* * *

Braig cackled at that. "Are you serious? You faked your own death back in Castle Oblivion, but you couldn't tell when I did it in front of you?"

"We passed by the Proof of Existence," Lea pointed out. "Your headstone showed you were dead. I suspected, sure, but that convinced me."

"Okay," Braig admitted, "so maybe I covered a few more details than you did."

Lea frowned and focused on how to cross the chasm ahead. He still couldn't figure it out – there were no platforms or ledges that would let them get across, other than the thin pipes that hung in the middle of the chasm, and those weren't exactly platform material.

Smirking, Braig looked at Lea and said, "Let me help you with that."

The former Organization member snapped his fingers, and the world went black for a second. When Lea could see again, the room had changed structure. Now, parts of the rock wall were jutting out, creating a perfect staircase up to the other side.

Lea rolled his eyes and jumped down to where the staircase started. "So that makes you the last Nobody in the Organization, then," he remarked.

"Nope!" Braig declared. "I'm back to my normal self, like you."

As sudden as that revelation was, Lea figured as much. He hadn't suspected in any empirical way, but something about Braig so far had seemed more genuine than Xigbar was. Not that Braig was a very genuine sort of guy to begin with, but it was all relative.

The two of them climbed the stairs to the top, and Braig space-warped the area again to return it back to normal. Ahead of them was a door leading further into the cavern.

Lea looked back at Braig. "You certainly didn't need _my_ help for this."

Braig shook his head. "The cavern's not the point of this. I just wanted to get you down here, away from your Restoration buddies."

"For an ambush?" Lea asked accusingly.

"To _talk_," Braig insisted. "We're, like, the last people left in the Organization. Face it, Lea – we're the closest thing we have to 'friends from the good old days.'"

Lea chuckled. "Yeah, good times. Hey, remember that time I went rogue and everyone was out to kill me? You were Xemnas's right-hand man - what was his reaction to all that? I always wondered."

Braig's mood suddenly went sour. "Dude, don't get me started on the boss-man. Just don't."

This reaction surprised Lea, but he decided to let the matter drop for now. "Okay, then here's a question: How did you become a full human being again?"

Braig nodded. "Alright, that's good. Well, first, you gotta realize that the other five Heartless – the ones for me and the rest of the apprentices – well, they're still out there. Or they were, anyway."

Lea froze. "Seriously?"

"Hey, you'll probably never see 'em," Braig assured him. "Alexander's destroyed two of 'em – going on three, probably – and I'm a whole person again. Ienzo's in a bit of an awkward place, but hey, that's how the cookie crumbles."

"So, getting back to why you're human again..."

"Right, right. So, right now Alex is up against Even's Heartless, right?" The former Nobody paused for a second. "Uh, lemme back up. The Heartless got all kinda... obsessed with Alex, right? His dark powers drew all of us toward him, his family, the worlds he visited..."

Lea thought back to the strange kid that had saved his life. The kid from another world, the one who knew everything that was going to happen leading up to Xemnas's downfall, had prevented him from performing a fatal limit break in the final act of Sora's journey. Last he'd heard, Alex had gone back to his own world – the Real World, so to speak – but Braig seemed to be saying otherwise. "Alex has been really busy, huh?"

"You could say that," Braig admitted. "It's kind of our fault – he started going to new game worlds specifically to draw us out..."

Lea rolled his eyes. "Human. Why are you human?"

Braig laughed. "Man, I'm just getting off track everywhere!"

The path they were currently on ended at a strange point. They were in front of a grand machine built into the rock wall. Three blocks of the machine faced the duo at different angles, each machine possessing a brass valve at the front.

"I _did_ want your help for this part," Braig said. "You gotta activate all three of these valves at the same time, or it won't work."

Lea summoned his chakrams and tossed one at the valve on the right. The valve budged a bit, and some steam escaped from the machine as it began to move. Braig brought out his Arrowguns and fired at the remaining two valves, getting them to move as well. After a little while of this treatment, there was a great shuddering throughout the cave, and the machines continued to operate on their own without Lea and Braig's manual assistance.

"What did that do?" Lea asked.

"That got all the machines in this cavern moving," Braig explained. "And that means some new paths have opened."

Lea slumped. "So we're backtracking, then."

"Yep. So, to answer your question," Braig said, dismissing his Arrowguns away, "let's just say my Heartless self wised up."

* * *

_"Braig, Ienzo," Even's Heartless stated, looking at his two remaining comrades through the portal connecting Haven with the dark realm. "I assume that this world is now connected to the others now, since you're able to communicate."_

_Ienzo's Heartless nodded. Even nodded back and continued, "I've been in this world for a little less than a year now, but it seems that Alexander had already spent more time than that before I had arrived. I suppose I was lucky to have arrived before this moment at all."_

_Braig's Heartless looked at Even from under his cloak's hood and said, "So, dude, what's the deal with Alex in this world?"_

_Even smirked. "He's a captive of the current despot... as well as his own mind, and he's had Dark Eco pumped into him every day for about a year now." He slowly lost his smirk. "With very few results."_

_Ienzo tilted his head to the side slightly. "...Dark Eco?" he said in a soft, calm voice._

_Even reached toward the desk in his new office and picked up a small vial filled with a violet, glowing plasma. "Dark life force, it seems. It is quite peculiar, even with all of the tests I've done with it. Normally it kills or severely damages whatever it touches, but Alexander and another prisoner have been almost unaffected by it." He tossed the vial through the portal, and Ienzo caught it._

_Ienzo studied the vial for a moment, but then looked back up at Even. "You say he's been injected with this darkness manifest for nearly a year now?"_

_Even scowled. "If the records are correct, it'll be exactly a year as of tomorrow. It'll be the second year for the other prisoner."_

_Ienzo nodded. He was silent for a moment after that, but he finally said, "You need to dispose of him."_

_"What?" Even responded, slightly taken aback._

_"If the last two encounters have been any indication," Ienzo replied calmly, "then we can see that Alexander has an annoying habit of making a strong comeback from whatever almost defeats him. For Dilan, it was the darkness that nearly took control of him. In Elaeus's scenario, Alexander was literally killed but brought back to life through a time paradox. If that remains the trend..."_

_Even scowled. "...But his _potential_..."_

_"Then rip out his heart and be done with it, dude," Braig said with a shrug. "But hey, it's your show. We ain't gonna come in there and take over. We gotta worry about what we're gonna do when our turn comes."_

_"Your turn _isn't_ going to come," Even snapped. "I'm going to master Alexander's power and then destroy him once he's reached the end of his usefulness. I'm not going to wait until the final clash like those other fools."_

_There was silence from the other two apprentices for a couple of moments, but Ienzo slowly replied, "Those other fools were our fellow students at one point." He held up the sample of Dark Eco. "We'll research this a bit more with our resources. Best of luck to you, Even."_

_The portal's darkness broke apart into many wispy tendrils and dissipated into the air._

_Back within the darkness, the Heartless that was once Braig slumped a little. "We're never going to see him again, are we?"_

_Ienzo turned to Even with a flat expression. "You think Alexander will revive himself and defeat Even?"_

_"H-Hey, you're the one who brought up all those points!" Even sputtered._

_"I was simply offering advice," Ienzo pointed out. "What were _you_ thinking?"_

_Braig threw up his hands and started walking away. "That this wasn't exactly our best plan ever."_

* * *

"I was pretty lucky that my Nobody had also wised up and faked his defeat. That way, my Heartless could meet up with my Nobody, and I could become a whole person again!" The former apprentice stopped, turned towards Lea, and performed a small bow. "And that's the story of why I'm back to normal."

Lea smirked. "So, long story short, Alex was kicking ass and taking names, so you turned tail and ran before it was your turn."

Almost instantaneously, Braig's grin turned into a mask of rage. The former Freeshooter grabbed Lea by the collar and shouted, "It wasn't that easy! Do you have any idea how long I've been doing this? How many deals and promises I've made? This isn't something you can just _run away from_, Lea!"

Lea pulled away from Braig and assumed a semi-defensive stance. "Yeesh, Braig," he muttered. "The Organization's over. We're alive. Let's move on already."

Braig... just laughed. It was a slow, pained kind of laugh. "As if." He sighed and motioned for Lea to follow. "C'mon. Let's get to the end of this."

* * *

Lea tried to get Braig to expand upon what he'd just implied, but Braig was suddenly less talkative for a good portion of the journey through the cavern. Which was just as well, because the journey was more challenging than it had been up to this point.

The ultimate goal, it seemed, was to climb to the top of the mineshaft in the center of the cavern. But each level was blocked off by machinery, so they needed to go into the mining areas surrounding the main mineshaft in order to ascend the long way around.

The whole area was a platforming nightmare, but Braig's space-warping abilities proved to be incredibly handy in places where Lea simply couldn't climb around obstacles. Many pistons, drills, and conveyors blocked their path, but at least there weren't any Heartless to attack them. The journey wasn't necessarily very difficult or taxing, but it was long and time-consuming.

Along the way, Braig asked Lea a few questions about what happened at The World That Never Was. Since Braig had been mostly forthcoming with his answers, Lea answered honestly in kind: That he was fated by the game to sacrifice himself, but Alexander's interference resulted in Lea rediscovering his own heart in the destruction of the fake Kingdom Hearts.

Braig chuckled. "Ha! That's funny. He didn't need to do that."

"What do you mean?" Lea asked irritably, a little miffed that Braig was laughing about his survival.

"When a Nobody is defeated and the Heartless heart is already out there, they automatically go back together," Braig said. "If you'd died where you were supposed to, you would've just revived a few days later."

Lea was silent for a little while as he took this information in. Then his eyes went wide. "Wait a minute..."

"Of course," Braig went on, "if it's the other way around – the Nobody, then the Heartless – then it gets a little tricky. The body has no heart to find yet, so it disappears into the Realm of Nothingness. Which means that Dilan, Aeleus, Even, and Ienzo are kinda stuck in a bad way..."

Lea turned to face Braig. "But Xemnas... I mean, Xehanort. His Heartless was destroyed, and now his Nobody..."

Braig grinned as Lea figured it out, but the grin soon disappeared. "Yeah, that's kind of a problem."

Lea held a hand to his head. "Great. Just great."

They came to another set of white doors. Braig went forward to open them, while Lea stood back and lamented this new revelation. Braig put his hands on the double doors and said, "Hey, at least you know now instead of finding out later, right? Aren't you glad I got you down here?"

Lea didn't say anything in response.

The doors opened, and the area before them was unlike anything else in the cavern. White marble walls and columns were in front of them, not unlike the halls of Castle Oblivion. The wall on their right was completely missing except for the pillars, showing a rising waterfall behind them.

"Excellent! We're getting close!" Braig declared.

Lea stepped into the hallway with Braig. "Woah. So the Organization really did have a base here. And it's hidden in the rising falls, so no one can really find it..."

"It was really more Xemnas's personal thing," Braig remarked. "It's not much of a base – there's only one room that really matters."

Lea and Braig continued to walk forward through the hall... until they were stopped by a bright barrier appearing before them and behind them. Several Dusks warped into existence nearby.

"...Buuut important enough to get its own guards," Braig added.

There were a few tense moments as the Dusks regarded the two ex-Organization members. Lea leaned over to Braig and quietly muttered, "I thought Alexander had closed the Dark Corridor here..."

"Doesn't really work if the Nobodies stay here the whole time," Braig replied, not bothering to lower his voice. "These Nobodies have been ordered to guard this place at all cost."

Lea swallowed. He could sense that these were very high-level Nobodies, and that there were many more waiting in the wings. "Well, maybe they'll let us by..."

The Dusks leaped at them all at once, forcing Lea and Braig to dodge. "Yeah," Lea growled, "I didn't think so either!" He summoned his fiery chakrams and attacked the closest Nobody.

Braig brought out his Arrowguns and fired a few shots at two of the Dusks. "This is another part I wanted your help with! Ready to make this a two-player game, Lea?"

The Dusks were dispatched with relative haste, despite their high level, but then a group of Assassin Nobodies appeared. Lea glanced at the device on his back and groaned. "I really hope this thing's impact-proof like Cid said..."

After that last expression of annoyance, Lea got his head in the game and attacked. He tossed a spinning chakram at one of the Assassins. With a little flourish of his hand, the chakram exploded in a large fireball, dealing a large amount of damage to the enemy Nobody. Another Assassin came up behind Lea, raising its bladed appendages to slash at him. Lea quickly turned around and slashed at the Nobody with his other chakram, attacking too quickly for the Nobody to retaliate.

Braig warped out of existence for a second, and then he reappeared upside-down on the ceiling. He fired on every Nobody in quick succession from above, too high for the other Nobodies to really do anything about it.

A couple of Samurai joined the fray. Above them, Braig's Arrowguns clicked uselessly. "Whoops, gotta reload!"

"For the love of..."

* * *

It was a long, hard-fought battle through a gauntlet of Nobodies. Every single type of Nobody appeared before them – Dancers, Sorcerers, Gamblers, Snipers, Dragoons, Berserkers, Creepers, Assassins, Samurai, and Dusks. Every single one of them was of a much higher level than anything Lea had ever encountered before, making them an absolute pain to kill.

As much as he hated to admit it, he really was lucky that Braig was there. Braig's Arrowguns were extremely effecting, not only at covering Lea from the sidelines but also damaging and destroying Nobodies outright. When Braig had to reload, however, was when Lea really had to watch his back.

He'd gotten into one-on-one showdowns with Samurai – and barely won.

He'd picked all the right cards with the Gamblers – except once, which got him turned into a card for a while.

He'd dodged the Snipers' shots – mostly because Braig somehow shot their bullets out of the air.

He'd incinerated the Dragoons – eventually, when they weren't jumping all around the battlefield.

Every Berserker and Sorcerer brought Lea to the brink of his health, but they'd managed to defeat each one before they could deal a finishing blow.

And with the Dusks, Creepers, and Dancers all swarming the battlefield to give their more powerful counterparts support, the entire battle was a mess for two ex-Organization members to take on.

But they did it. After traversing three separate battlegrounds in the hallway and surviving countless waves of Nobodies, Lea and Braig stood at the grand doorway at the other end of the long hall. It was a tall, ornate entranceway, with the Nobody emblem decorating the top of the doors.

While Lea was rubbing his bruises and biting back the awful taste of several Hi-Potions, Braig went on ahead and opened the doors.

The doorway opened up to a rather strange sight – what appeared to be a circular white platform creating a gap in the rising waterfalls. There was a short downward staircase in front of them leading to a great circular depression in the platform. Along the inner walls, reaching all the way around the circular platform, were endless amounts of circuitry. Electric blue lines traced down from the outside walls to a stand in the center, on which several monitors were placed.

"We have arrived!" Braig announced. "The Garden of Assemblage." He walked down the staircase and towards the computer monitors in the center.

Lea finished nursing his wounds and stepped through the doorway. "This is it?" he asked, looking around. "This is what we came down here to see?"

Braig didn't answer immediately. Instead, he stepped up to the largest monitor and starting touching it. There was no physical keyboard in sight, so there was a touch-screen interface for the operating system Braig was now handling. Miles of text scrolled by that Lea didn't understand, but soon there was a loud rumbling from around the Garden of Assemblage.

One by one, large keyhole-shaped portal structures came forth from the rising falls, settling around the upper edge of the platform. Each portal had a different glowing symbol – the weapon of one of the Organization members – and there were thirteen portals in all.

Braig continued to touch the monitor and said, "A little something Xemnas put in place to remember us by. You go through those portals, you'll get a little digital sample of each of us."

Lea stepped up to the computer. "So, this is that mainframe stuff they were talking about..."

Braig chuckled. "Yeah, he also thought it'd be a good idea to have a secondary base. Doesn't really matter now, since msot of the old Organization is unsuitable for his needs..."

Lea... just sighed. Braig was obviously trying to hint more secrets, but it was just starting to get exasperating. "Braig, stop hinting and start telling already. This schtick is starting to get irritating."

Braig kept typing for a few seconds, then stopped. He thought for a little bit, and said, "Did you know that Nobodies eventually grow their own hearts?"

"The hell?" was Lea's only available response.

Braig nodded. "And while that heart is growing, you could _theoretically_ influence it to become whatever you want. That was the real purpose of Organization XIII."

"To... what?" Lea muttered.

Braig gestured at all of the portals. "To create thirteen incarnations of Master Xehanort. Each Nobody gets infused with some of Xehanort's heart, and the rest of the heart that grows turns that Nobody into one of Xehanort's thirteen."

"That's...!" Lea was at a loss for words. "That **bastard**!" He'd known that Xemnas had decieved each and every one of them for over a year, but this was absolutely insane!

"It didn't work with you guys – the old Organization," Braig explained. "Most of you were too independent. Not desperate or weak-willed enough to just roll over and become Xehanort. The whole infusion thing just fizzled on a few of you."

Lea put his hands to his head, trying to steady himself after this revelation. He felt... violated, and that was the only way to put it. Xemnas, all along, was trying to transform them into...

Then what Braig said earlier came back to the fore. Xehanort was coming back. "Does that mean... he's still trying to do that? Make his thirteen without _us_?"

Braig smirked and typed a little more on the computer monitor. Just ahead of the monitor stand, on the opposite wall from the staircase, a large section of the wall slid away to reveal another downward staircase.

"Well, that concludes our tour," Braig stated. "This shortcut will get you back to the town." He started to walk towards the newly opened exit. "Do whatever computer stuff you need to do. I'll catch ya later."

Braig disappeared through the new exit, leaving Lea alone with the heavy piece of machinery on his back... which he had nearly forgotten about.

Lea took off the machine and set it next to the monitor stand. Now that he took a closer look, there was some connection cables all neatly coiled up and plugged into Cid's machine. The cable split into multiple different types of connectors, probably just in case he could only find one slot. After a little bit of searching, he found a similar port for one of the cables in the monitor stand, and he plugged it in.

Cid's machine came whirring to life. A part of the top folded out, and a signal dish rose up and started blinking. At the same time, a great deal of activity appeared on the multiple monitors.

After about a minute of Lea wondering what was going on, a voice called out, _"Connection established. Hello, Lea."_

Lea blinked. "Tron?" he sputtered. "I was carrying _you_ this whole time?"

_"Yeah, sorry about that,"_ Cid's voice came from the machine. One of the monitors switched to what appeared to be a camera feed of Merlin's house, from the perspective of Cid's terminal. Cid, Leon, and Aerith were there. _"There's a lot about that thing I didn't tell ya."_

Lea folded his arms and glared up at the monitor. "Like what?"

Cid suddenly became nervous. _"Like... the fact that... well..."_

_"There was an audio recorder that was running the whole time,"_ Leon said.

"WHAT?!" Lea exclaimed.

Cid sighed, which came across as a rush of static. _"I didn't wanna do it, but Leon insisted. He wanted to... see what you'd do."_

Lea glared through the screen at Leon. "You still don't trust me, huh?"

_"The recording is coming across the network now,"_ Leon said coldly. _"Whatever's in that data will settle the question once and for all."_

This gave Lea pause, as well as some reason to be concerned. If they'd been recording the entire journey through the Cavern of Remembrance... then they'd know that Lea had been traveling and speaking with Braig, an ex-Organization member. Hopefully, Lea's interactions proved that he and Braig were no longer allies... but he didn't know if Leon would see it that way.

At this point, Tron's voice cut into the conversation. _"Users, I think you should see this."_

On the main monitor, a feed from within the Radiant Garden castle appeared. It was of the Heartless Manufactory.

In the center of the Heartless Manufactory, a rectangular piece of the floor was giving away, forming a ramp leading down below. Just in front of the newly made ramp stood a man in a black coat, who started to walk down into the mysterious depths.

Aerith leaned in. _"Did anyone know that was there?"_

Leon glared at Lea. _"Lea, what did you do down there?"_

Lea just stared at the black-coated man for a second, before coming to a realization. "Dammit, Braig!" he shouted, running past the computer equipment and down into the shortcut.


	2. Part 2

**Part 2**

Damn Braig and his _damn_ secret agendas.

Of course it wasn't as simple as wanting to talk. No, Braig needed his help getting to that terminal – past all the hostile Nobodies – so that he could get access to some secret Organization chamber beneath the Heartless Manufactory!

Lea ran as fast as he could. The secret exit deposited him just outside the castle restoration site. Lea kept running all the way up the hill to the castle ramparts, through the twisting corridors inside, and all the way through Ansem's study.

Gasping for breath, Lea took a moment to rest just outside the Heartless Manufactory entrance. If he'd kept his old black coat, then using a corridor of darkness to get there instantly would have been a viable option. Instead, he'd traded it out so that he'd stop reminding Leon and the others of his guilty past. So now, like everyone else, he had to get everywhere the old-fashioned way.

Changing teams had its downsides.

Once he'd recovered enough, Lea dashed into the Manufactory. Sure enough, there was a ramp leading down beneath the floor, leading to some new dark area. Lea charged down the ramp.

The ramp brought him down to a landing in a place completely different from anything else in the entire world of Radiant Garden. He was in a great, tall shaft, with a ramp spiraling downward towards the bottom. It was all dark and he couldn't see the bottom – the walls were black and the floor was patterned gray and dark blue. The only light came from above and from the pipes running through the platforms and along the outside walls, pulsing red and blue as _something_ traveled along them. None of this looked like anything else in Radiant Garden, or even anything that Organization XIII made.

Lea charged down the spiral ramp, going further down into the dim depths below. The ramp went down quite a few revolutions of the shaft, to the point that Lea was considering just jumping down a few levels to save time. But before he committed to that decision, Lea saw the end in sight: the floor of the chasm, and a pair of sliding doors near where the ramp ended.

Lea ran down and stood in front of the doors, which slid open automatically. A long hallway was on the other side, featuring yet another change in architecture. The floor was dark blue polished tile, the walls were white, and the entire hallway was properly lit.

The former Organization member charged down the hallway immediately, but his attention was caught by what he was passing. Lining both sides of the hall were doors – cells, prison cells with bars in the diamond-shaped windows of the doors. The security seemed to be tight – a keypad was next to every door instead of any discernible handle or knob, and there were even _chains_ crossing the doors' bottom halves.

The only other color in the hall besides white, gray, and dark blue was _red_. There were streaks of red running down from the ceiling to just above the cell doors. Lea couldn't quite tell if they were pipes, lights, or something else.

Something clicked in Lea's mind. "Is this... where they did their experiments?" he wondered quietly.

There was a strange sound from the end of the hall. A sound that seemed to combine the crackling of electricity and the hum of raw energy. It was coming from beyond a door at the end of the hallway.

Lea ran up to the door, but slowed down as he approached to quiet his footsteps. He also summoned his chakrams as he got close, flattening himself against the wall next to the sliding door.

"Looks like a success!" he heard Braig's voice from within the room. "It fits you like a charm."

Lea stepped out, the sliding door opened, and he rushed in.

This room – the final room, for there were no other entrances or exits – looked a little more like the Organization's work. Everything was white and gray, but there were black chains (not actual chains, just designs on the floor) stretching to and fro and up the walls. Each chain connected to both the white throne in the center of the room and to one of the black Nobody emblems along the wall.

Lea stepped to the side to see past the great white chair, and sure enough – there was Braig. But there was someone else with him.

A woman in blue armor, weilding a blue and steel Keyblade. The woman turned from Braig to Lea and said, "And who is this?"

Braig turned around and jumped a little in surprise. "Oh. Guess you found my little secret, huh?"

Lea was a little too confused to focus on his anger towards Braig. Staring at the woman, he lowered his chakrams and muttered, "We'ren't you...? Aren't you...?"

Braig cleared his throat. "Lea, meet Themis. Themis, meet Lea."

"What?" Lea mumbled, more confused by the name than anything else. For some reason, he'd been expecting some other name...

"Is this an associate of yours, Braig?" Themis asked, her voice utterly calm. "Another one of your master's 'thirteen?'"

"Oh, no no no no no," Braig denied quickly. "He just helped me open the chamber."

"Wait a minute!" Lea shouted, his confusion turning into clarity and rage. "You used me to get in here, and for what?"

Braig opened his mouth to speak, but Themis cut him off. "I required the armor and Keyblade of an old Master. I believe this one was named Aqua." She looked at Braig. "He was sent here to open the way for me."

" ," Braig muttered, putting a hand over his eyes.

Lea couldn't believe what he was hearing. All this to _steal_ a Keyblade? "How is that even possible? Keyblades only respond to their chosen master – you can't use one that's not your own!"

Themis raised the Keyblade towards Lea and replied, "I beg to differ. _Ice Lance_."

Lea knew a spell invocation when he heard one. He quickly brought his chakrams up and summoned a wall of fire right in front of them. A great spear of ice appeared before Themis and launched itself at Lea. Lea's fire defense blocked against the impact a bit, but some of the ice made it through and hit Lea for reduced damage.

Themis, standing perfectly poised, swung her Keyblade and intoned, "_Electro Bolt_."

For this one, Lea had no ready defense. He tried to dodge, but couldn't avoid being struck by a massive lightning bolt. Lea resisted to the best of his ability, but was driven to his knees by the attack.

His head swam for a few moments, and he was unable to get his bearings. When his vision cleared, Braig was standing above him, aiming one of his Arrowguns at his head.

"I'll take care of him," Braig said, a nasty grin on his face. "You run along and report to your boss."

Themis nodded and walked out of the room, bringing up what seemed to be a cellphone. Lea could hear her footsteps echoing down the hallway, as well as her voice as she spoke to someone: "Brother, I have acquired my equipment. I am told Hyperion was also successful, so that just leaves..."

Lea looked up at Braig, who was holding a finger in front of his own mouth in a 'shush'ing gesture.

The Arrowgun fired, but the glowing dart jabbed into the wall behind Lea.

A few seconds passed in silence, until they were completely unable to hear Themis's footsteps and speech anymore. There hadn't been any sound of a door sliding open, so she had to have used some kind of portal.

"Gullible," Braig remarked. "Like little kids."

Lea just glared at Braig from where he was sitting. He could still feel the shock and burn from the electrical attack. "You talking about me or her?"

"Hey, you didn't make it easy," Braig joked. "I had to _work_ to get you to do what I want." He extended his hand down to Lea to help him up.

Lea groaned and grabbed Braig's hand. "So that's it?" he asked as he got back to his feet. "We just let her walk out with someone else's Keyblade?"

Braig shrugged. "You're free to do something about them if you want. Though she's probably off-world by now..."

Lea just gave Braig an incredulous look. "I'm free, and you're not? You _had_ to help her?"

"That's the idea." Braig pointed at his non-patched eye. It was a bright golden color. "See this? This means I'm already half-Xehanort. Hell, I've been Xehanort's number two for almost a decade now. You think I can just **walk away **from this?"

The story slowly came together in Lea's mind. He folded his arms and said, "You just NOW started having second thoughts."

Braig grimaced. "It's obvious now, isn't it? No matter how close he gets, Master Xehanort's just destined to lose every single time. When I was Xigbar, I was sure Alexander would 'Game Over' before he got to us, but... no, it happened exactly the way he knew it would happen."

"He even improved it a little," Lea added, pointing at himself.

"Not the point," Braig muttered. "Point is... I get it. I know I'm on the wrong side. But Master Xehanort doesn't get it."

"It's _Xemnas_, er, _Xehanort_," Lea pointed out. "He's not the type to give up on a decades-long scheme."

Braig sighed. "But he's making it harder for me to..." Again, Lea got to see Braig in a rare state of fear and worry. "...for me to get out. Instead of giving up on this plan, he's hatching _new_ plans by the cartload. That's what this whole thing was."

"Tell me the plan, then," Lea said. "Maybe you can't, but the rest of us..."

"I can't be too obvious," Braig interrupted him. "If he catches on that I've even _said_ this to anyone..." He made a slicing motion across his neck. "That's it."

Lea frowned at him. "Okay... without being too obvious..." He leaned in towards Braig. "What do I need to know?"

The former apprentice of Ansem the Wise thought about it for quite a while. "Damn, this must be what Alex feels like all the time..." he quipped.

Finally, after a long period of silence, Braig seemed to come to a decision.

"All I can tell you is that he's got two plans in motion," he explained. "One for Sora, and one for Alex. This whole thing with Themis? That's part of the Alex plan. But the Alex plan is really just meant to be a distraction from the Sora plan."

Lea knew that wasn't good. Roxas was still inside Sora. If what Braig was saying was true, then Xehanort had a possible angle on Sora. "What's the Sora plan?"

"Sometime very soon, both Sora and Riku are going to head for the Sleeping Worlds," Braig said. "That's where we'll trap them. And that's all I'm going to say about it. About everything."

Lea didn't know what the Sleeping Worlds were, but he got the general idea. "So what do I do about these two plans?"

Braig just shrugged. "Hell if I know. These plans always seem airtight the way Xehanort explains them... but there's gotta be a flaw somewhere." He thought for a second in silence, and added, "My advice? Send backup."

"Thanks," Lea jabbed sarcastically.

"I'm not the hero here," Braig said in his defense. "You guys gotta figure it out. I've done all I can."

Black tendrils of darkness appeared at Braig's feet, slowly rising up to envelop him entirely. As he began to disappear, he grinned at the other former Organization member and said, "Best of luck, Axel."

Lea blinked... then smirked right back. "It's Lea. L-E-A. Got it memorized?"

* * *

It was a long trek back to Merlin's house in the borough, made even longer by all the thoughts weighing on Lea's mind. He still wasn't sure on what side Braig stood, he wasn't sure how to respond to the news that Xehanort was back, and he had no idea how Leon and the others were about to greet him.

He hoped the tape recording proved... something. There wasn't really much guilt or redemption in what he'd said in the Cavern of Remembrance – just two former assosciates talking and trading information.

Lea finally reached the house and opened the door, resigned to his fate.

"Well hiya, Axel!"

Lea looked up to see Goofy inside the house, waving at him. "Goofy?"

It was indeed Sora's friend from Disney Castle, Goofy, standing there with Leon and the rest of the Committee. Needless to say, Lea was more than a little surprised.

"His name's Lea, Goofy," Yuffie pointed out with a grin.

"You changed your name?" Goofy asked, tilting his head a bit.

Lea chuckled sheepishly. "No, no, that was my original name." Then he shook his head and said, "More to the point, what are you doing here?"

"Well," Goofy began, "Yen Sid wanted me to come out here and check on things before goin' to see Alex. Us and the King ran into this guy called Hyperion, and we wanted to see if you guys had seen anything strange too."

Aerith shook her head. "Can't say that we have..."

Lea, however, was suddenly suspicious. "Hyperion?"

Goofy nodded. "We caught him stealing a set of armor and a Keyblade belonging to someone really important. He got away, but it sounded like he had some partners."

"Partners..." Lea muttered quietly.

Leon looked straight at Lea, still with a serious look on his face. "What did you find in the Heartless Manufactory, Lea?"

Lea wasn't quite sure how to phrase what he saw, but he knew he had to be honest with Leon. "Well... uh... Braig kinda... opened up a secret chamber. There was this shaft, then a long hallway with what looked like _prison cells_... and then one last room, where..."

He trailed off and looked at Goofy. "I think we might've had something like what you were talking about, Goofy. Braig opened up that chamber to let someone else in – a woman calling herself Themis. She took an armor and a Keyblade that was hidden in that room."

Leon's eyes widened. "Where did-"

"She's gone," Lea said with a sigh. "She has some really weird and powerful magic, and... she caught me off guard with it. The armor's gone. So's Braig."

Leon groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Great."

Sensing that his standing with Leon was suffering a bit, Lea decided to bring up some good news instead. "But I did get a lot of information out of Braig."

Lea then proceeded to tell the group everything he'd learned about Xehanort, Xehanort's plans, and Braig's desire to switch sides.

* * *

"How do you know this information's good?" Leon asked. "Braig might be tricking you. He manipulated you into entering the Cavern and opening up that secret chamber. Maybe this-"

"What," Lea interrupted, "by dumping a lot of intel on me and saying, 'Do whatever you want?' If he was being sneaky, he could've phrased it differently." Lea rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know if he's totally genuine, or if this whole redemption thing will pan out, but I don't think there's anything nefarious behind _this_."

"So..." Yuffie cut in, "what do we do?" She looked to Goofy. "You were going to check in on Alex and tell him about all this, right?"

Goofy nodded. "Yeah. From what we learned in the dataspace, Alex doesn't really know anything about this. Some of it's new, too. Still, Yen Sid thinks he ought to know."

"And Braig said this was part of the 'Alex plan,'" Lea added. "This is going to reach him eventually."

"There's a small problem with that," a new voice sounded off. There was a puff of smoke, and the wizard Merlin appeared in the house.

"A problem?" Goofy echoed.

"Alexander can't leave the world he's in until the game's events have concluded," Merlin said. "What's more, I've been performing some divination spells and... Well, the world he's in right now is downright _awful_. Full of darkness and misery unlike anything _our_ worlds have ever experienced."

Cid leaned back in his chair. "So if yer gonna do anything about Hyperion and Themis, you gotta get him outta that place first."

Goofy nodded. "Yep, that's where I'm headed. To help him out and then tell him about Hyperion."

"Just you?" Lea wondered aloud. "All by yourself?"

"Well, Donald was gonna come too, but he decided to stay behind and help the King."

Lea glanced at Leon meaningfully. Leon glared back a little.

"I owe Alex one for saving my life," Lea said. "I should go, too." He knew it technically wasn't necessary from what Braig told him – he would've been revived anyway – but the fact that Alex did so still meant a lot to him.

Leon's glare intensified by a notch. "You're just going to leave and-"

"As a matter of fact," Lea added quickly, "there's something else, too." He walked up to Leon and got in his face. "There's no Heartless on this world right now, and Sora's going to need all the help he can get. So while I go help Alex, somebody should go back to Disney Castle or the Mysterious Tower or whatever and help Sora, too."

An awkward silence fell upon the room as Lea and Leon stared at each other.

"Just... leave the city we're protecting?" Leon muttered.

"Actually..." Cid started.

Leon's glare went in Merlin's direction. Cid flinched a bit, and then continued, "There ain't a better time to do it. No Heartless, the defense system's as optimized as I can make it... The city _could_ survive a couple of you leaving for a day or two."

"And this is Xehanort we're talking about," Lea pointed out. "The same person who became the Seeker of Darkness Ansem and the Organization leader Xemnas. The person who ruined this world in the first place. If there's anything we can do to get in the way of his plans, we must."

Yuffie grinned. "I'm in if Leon's in!"

Aerith looked at Leon. "I'd be willing too, but... it's your call, Leon."

The silence that followed seemed to stretch on forever. Leon looked at everyone in the room one at a time without saying anything or changing his expression. Then, finally, he let out a sigh. "You're right, Lea. Sora's our friend, too."

Yuffie let out a cheer. "Woohoo! We're going on an adventure!"

Goofy smiled at Lea. "So you'll join me, Lea?" When Lea nodded back at him, Goofy said, "Alright! Operation 'Let's Go Save Alex' is a go!"

"Don't forget to check in on the other worlds along the way," Merlin added. "Hyperion's and Themis's third partner might have made an appearance. You might also find some allies in the worlds Alexander has visited."

"We shouldn't waste too much time, though," Lea said. "If this world he's in is really so bad, we should hurry and help him."

"Sounds like a plan," Cid remarked. "Gonna be nice, having you all out of here for a few days. Like a vacation."

Leon rolled his eyes and looked back at Lea. "By the way... About the recording..."

Suddenly, all of the good feelings Lea had were gone, and all the anxiety he'd been feeling before he'd walked into the house was back. What was the verdict?

Leon sighed. "You're fine. Stop panicking."

"Oh."

"It's clear you're not an Organization agent anymore," Leon admitted. The frown on his face didn't fade, but some of the anger in his eyes disappeared. "You're on our side."

"Which is what I was trying to _tell_ you this whole time!" Lea cried out exasperatedly.

Leon put a hand over his face. "Just go already."

Lea grimaced, but looked around at the house that had been his home for a few days. In a very short amount of time, he'd gone from being a traitor of a madman's Organization to having a home and a purpose in his world of origin. And he had Alexander to thank for that.

Now it was time to return the favor.

"Alright. Let's get going."

_Reunion._

**The Interference: Trials of Remembrance**

**END**


End file.
